Featuring Heath Miller, Pask's Assistant Vineyard Manager and Hawke's Bay Young Viticulturist of the Year 2026. Last updated 23 June 2026
Heath is Pask's Assistant Vineyard Manager, and in June 2026 he was named Hawke's Bay Young Viticulturist of the Year. His job is to look after the vines for the whole growing year: from pruning in the depths of winter, through the growing season, to the day the fruit is picked and handed over to the winery. Everything that goes into a bottle of Pask begins under the care of Heath and his team in the vineyard, long before it reaches the winery. It's one of the most important roles we have. 1 We wrote this in the middle of winter, so what follows is a winter day in the Gimblett Gravels. The work shifts with the seasons, but the thread running through stays the same: knowing the vineyard block by block, and getting the fruit to its best. Most people never see this part of the wine. Here it is, in Heath's words.
Meet Heath
Heath came to Pask at the start of 2021, taken on for the summer to do the simple jobs: tucking shoots into the wires, lending a hand wherever needed. Five seasons on, he runs the vineyard. "I was brought in as a summer worker," he says, "and grew into the role that I am in now."
What an Assistant Vineyard Manager actually does in winter
The work follows the season, and winter is when the year is set up. Heath's day begins with a look around. "The first thing I'll do when I get to work is take a drive around," he says, "see how the vines and blocks are looking, and make a plan for the rest of the week from there." Then it's onto the winter jobs: pruning, frost protection, canopy work, and looking after the soil.
Pruning is the biggest job. "We spend a lot of time making sure pruning runs smoothly and getting all the quality controls needed," Heath says. Every cut shapes how the vine will carry fruit in the season ahead, which is why it takes the care it does. The work done now, quietly and in the cold, is what sets up the whole year that follows.
Winter in the Gimblett Gravels
Where you grow changes how you grow, and the Gimblett Gravels is not like the rest of Hawke's Bay. The free-draining river gravels give Heath a lever most sites don't have: precise control over how much water the vines get.
"The gravels are really crucial because they help us really control the water over our blocks compared to a lot of the other siltier sites," he explains. That control is a deliberate tool, not a constraint. "We're able to really starve some of our Syrah blocks, which has given us massive quality control."
Holding back the water on a Syrah block stresses the vines, concentrates the fruit, and helps explain why the wine carries the depth it does. It's the same stony ground, worked the same careful way, that runs through everything on our single-vineyard site in the Gimblett Gravels.
Inside the Young Viticulturist competition
The Young Viticulturist of the Year isn't a single test. It spans the whole job. "The competition goes over a lot of different events," Heath says: "pest and disease, nutrition, pruning, and lots of other areas in the field." 2 He prepared the way you'd expect from someone who learns by doing. "I spent a lot of time just studying everything that I already know, and trying to figure out what I don't know." He'd put the work in, and the win landed. "Finally getting a win felt really, really cool. It was a really cool achievement, and it was nice to have my friends and family there to support me."
From the vine to the glass
Ask Heath what he'd want someone drinking a Pask wine to understand, and his answer goes straight to the work. "I'd want someone to know the effort that goes into getting a wine into a glass. It's a long process, and lots of care goes into every step from viticulture to the winery team."
It's a long commitment, too, and, by his account, the hardest part of the job. "Once you're into the middle of summer, you're pretty much flat out non-stop, and you don't really get a break." The misunderstood part is the opposite of what he expected. He thought vineyard work would be isolated; instead it's been full of people. "There's been a lot of really cool social aspects, and meeting a lot of different people in the field."
His proudest moment this year is the one that closes the loop between the vineyard and the bottle: the harvest. "The quality we're able to achieve this year we haven't seen in any previous years. And it's through a lot of different things that we've changed to get there."
That care in the vineyard is the first chapter of the wines these grapes become. The best way to read the rest is in the glass. Come and taste the result at our cellar door on Omahu Road in Hastings.
Frequently asked questions
What does a viticulturist do? A viticulturist looks after the grapevines, the growing side of wine, before the fruit reaches the winery. The work runs year-round and follows the season: pruning and setting up in winter, canopy and vineyard management through spring and summer, and bringing the fruit in at harvest. At Pask, our Assistant Vineyard Manager, Heath, makes site-specific calls like how much to water each block.
When is grapevine pruning done in New Zealand? Pruning is a winter job, roughly June to August in New Zealand, once the vines are dormant. It's one of the most important tasks of the year: every cut shapes how the vine carries fruit in the coming season, which is why it takes so much time and care.
What is the Hawke's Bay Young Viticulturist of the Year? It's a regional competition that tests young vineyard professionals across the full range of the job (pest and disease management, nutrition, pruning, and other field skills) rather than on any single task. Heath, Pask's Assistant Vineyard Manager, won the Hawke's Bay title in June 2026.
Why does the Gimblett Gravels matter for growing grapes? The free-draining gravel soils let the grower control how much water the vines receive far more precisely than on heavier, siltier sites. At Pask, that means deliberately stressing some Syrah blocks by holding back water, which concentrates the fruit and lifts quality.
